3rd Place Chili

I have only done two chili cookoffs in my life and the second one I did I took 3rd! I lost to more of a broccoli cheese soup that took first but that day my 3rd place chili was born!

About this Recipe

My chili recipe all started with a really fun Christmas party. I’ve been lucky enough to work for a lot of smaller businesses early in my career and honestly later in my career as well. We had our Christmas party at the owners house and the theme of the party was a chili cookoff. At that point I had never made chili but I looked up a bunch of recipes and chose ingredients from a bunch that I thought would make a chili that I would like to eat.

I didn’t even come close to winning that day – I think it was rigged because the owners mom won so… but it sparked my love for making chili. I kept making it and there was a chili cookoff at our local bar one winter so I entered. I won third my first time out! I got a t-shirt that fit my husband which was awesome… My 3rd place chili recipe is great for stuffing meatballs or great for chili cheese dogs – it’s a nice thick chili that holds together to make a great topping and also freezes well for meatball stuffing. Whether you stuff your meatballs with this recipe of just eat it on it’s own I hope you love my chili as much as we do.

Yield

5 quarts

Prep Time

35 mins

Cook Time

4-16 hours

Good For

All things Chili

Ingredients

2 lbs ground beef
1 lb Jimmy Dean’s Hot Sausage
3 jalapenos diced
1 orange pepper diced
1 red pepper diced
1 small onion diced
2 can spicy chili beans
1 can red kidney beans
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
1 can tomatoes with green chilies
1 can green chilies
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 cans tomato sauce
2 packets chili spice
1 packet hot chili spice
1 heaping tbs of dark cocoa powder

Step 1

Brown the ground beef until cooked through in a pan. Once cooked drain excess fat on a plate with paper towels. You can do the same with the hot sausage. You can do this in batches if needed depending on the size of the pan you use.

Step 2

Take the cooked ground beef and hot sausage and place it in a food processor and pulse until it’s a fine crumble. You can also do this in batches depending on the size of your food processor. This step is optional but this is how I make my chili thicker and easier to freeze. Put the meat in a crockpot.

Step 3

Cut the jalapeños in half and remove the ribs and seeds. Dice the jalapeños into small cubes and put them in the crockpot.

Step 4

Slice the orange and red pepper in half and remove the ribs and seeds. Cut the peppers into strips and dice them into small cubes and add them to the jalapeños and meat in the crockpot.

Step 5

Drain and rinse the red kidney beans and add them to the crockpot as well.

Step 6

Add the rest of the can goods to the crockpot. The spicy chili beans can be added including the sauce they are canned with.

Step 7

Add the chili spice packets and the heaping tablespoon of dark cocoa powder. Mix everything well.

Step 8

Cook the chili on low in the crockpot for at least 4 hours. I leave my chili cooking in the crockpot all day. The longer you cook it the more the flavors meld and meat breaks down. I cook this for a long time to get it to the texture I love for a good chili dog sauce.

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Add all of your ingredients to your bowl and mix together until well combined. I do this by hand to make sure I have everything well incorporated and really it’s just a lot quicker and a lot more fun to get your hands dirty. I always use a larger bowl for this part – it seems to be easier than struggling with a smaller bowl and making a mess. I try to break up the eggs and mix the breadcrumbs over the meat before really digging and mixing the ingredients together. This way you don’t get clumps of breadcrumbs in the meat mixture. If that happens, keep working the breadcrumbs into the meat to evenly distribute the ingredients.

This meatball recipe uses the simple base meatball recipe I use for a lot of my meatballs. The only real difference in this particular one is the addition of the sautéed mushrooms. This adds a new element when it comes to stuffing and rolling the meatballs. Since I cook the mushroom before they are added to the meat they are a little slippery. Just be aware of this when working with the meat. If the mushrooms fall out as you are stuffing them or rolling them just pick up some and smoosh them in the meat – and yep, that’s my technical solution to this problem. If you add the mushrooms without cooking them they can add additional moisture to the meatball or the ones that are exposed during cooking can dry out – just like pizza.

I love this particular recipe since it has so many mushrooms in the recipe. I swear mushrooms find their way in so many of my recipes – whether it’s a meatball that I want to make or just a different weeknight dinner that doesn’t consist of meatballs. They have such a wonderful earthy flavor that is an easy way to add a little umami to any dish. They go so well with so many things like beef and onions and garlic. They are what make this dish in my opinion. One of the things that make mushrooms so amazing is to make sure that you are cooking them well. Raw mushrooms are a little spongy and have a very different texture. I also always use fresh mushrooms and have never used canned mushrooms too. I am personally not a fan of canned mushrooms for many reasons but mostly because of their flavor and texture. They got nothing on fresh mushrooms.

For this particular recipe I added cubes of swiss cheese to stuff these meatballs with. I know it isn’t a traditional ingredient in Beef Stroganoff but the nuttiness of the swiss cheese really pairs well with the rich mushroom sauce. Mushroom and swiss is one of those classic combinations that I think also really plays well in this particular meatball. You can totally leave out the swiss cheese stuffing if you would like but I think it really adds another yummy flavor profile to the meatball. And really – I’m pretty sure there is a reason why there are so many people out there that say cheese makes everything better. I think in this meatball’s case it’s totally true. If there is another cheese that’s out there that you like better than swiss cheese – like mozzarella or provolone that you’d like to swap out – go for it! Those two options are a little milder than swiss – and a lot milder than swiss depending on the swiss that you choose.

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Chili-Cheese-Stuffed-Meatballs-raw-balls

The other cool thing about these particular meatballs is that you can use your creativity on how you would like to serve them. The traditional way you see Beef Stroganoff served in the US is over egg noodles – or at least based on my research that’s the most common way. Every time I’ve had it at a friends house here in the Midwest it’s served over egg noodles. I will admit though that egg noodles are a staple in Minnesota since they show up in a number of hotdish recipes.

You can switch it up a bit and serve these over anything you love! Make some amazing mashed potatoes or if you are a fan of polenta you can make a batch of that to serve these swiss stuffed balls over.

I make these meatballs for weeknight meals or I’ve made them to take to various potlucks throughout my life. They are a little time consuming since there is a sauce involved and there is also some sauteed mushrooms in the meat so if you are thinking about making them during the week it’s great to pick a night where you have a little time to cook. One of the best things about this recipe is that you get to cook mushrooms a couple times and the sauce has onions and garlic in it so as you are cooking you fill your house with some amazing, mouth watering smells. This is perfect to get everyone excited about dinner as you are cooking.